Law
A number of laws addressed the issue of relations between men and boys. None but citizens could engage free boys in pederastic relationships. A law stated that “A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash”, and slaves likewise were forbidden from the wrestling schools: “A slave shall not take exercise or anoint himself in the wrestling-schools”. Both laws were attributed to Solon. Commercial pederasty involving free boys was also forbidden. The relative who lent out a ward for illicit intercourse was punished. Boys who sold their favors (hetaireesis) risked losing most of their rights as citizens once come to adulthood. One surviving piece of Greek oratory documents a legal case, Against Timarchos, in which Aeschines pleads to enforce precisely that law against his opponent. Hubris (rape) was against the law not only in the case of free boys, but even with slaves.
In order to prevent teachers from taking advantage of their charges, a law was passed forbidding them from opening their schools before dawn or staying open past sunset. Likewise, there was a law threatening with death any man under forty who trespassed onto school grounds.
Read more about this topic: Athenian Pederasty
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity—the law of nature and of nations.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“No law is sufficiently convenient to all.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counterauthority to the law.”
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